I'VE got Ireland on my mind as St. Patrick's Day nears. The Irish are loyal
when it comes to sportsIt was only seven months ago that I nervously ventured out across that country in a standard drive Peugot from Dublin's airport to find my grandfather's birthplace in County Leitrim.
It was a significant experience, not just from genealogical standpoint. I wasn't sure I would survive driving on the left side of Ireland's narrow thoroughfares. You see, driving the country roads there is like playing an endless game of ''chicken." I had an out-of-body experience every time I saw a truck coming from the opposite direction.
While I fumbled with the clutch and stick shift from Dublin to Leitrim, to Roscommon, to Mayo, to Galway, to Limerick, I tuned into radio broadcasts of hurling championships being contested in the provinces of Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connacht.
The Irish have a way of manipulating and enhancing the sound of the English language in a way that eludes the rest of the world. I guess that's why the play-by-play commentary fascinated me and somewhat eased the tension of navigating byways squeezed by ancient stonewalls. In fact, the intensity of the broadcasts gave my journey a cadence I hadn't expected.
IT occurred to me as I stopped at bed-and-breakfast inns along the way and inevitably found myself watching matches with the families who lived there, that the passion Irish people feel for these teams is a lot more genuine than what Americans feel for their teams.
There's a simple reason for that.
They're cheering for their own people. Amateurs born and raised in the same county. Men who hold down full-time jobs and play hurling or Gaelic football after work.
''In Ireland, games are played primarily for the love of the game," said Leo Lynch, a Kaneohe resident who hails from County Cork and played football there.
''In America, people might change their team loyalties, but in Ireland that doesn't happen," said Lynch. ''You're born in a county and you'll always be a part of it. In rivalries between counties, there's tremendous passion and commitment. Even trying to get extra expense money is frowned upon."
When the county team loses in hurling or Gaelic football, depression hits the entire family. Even the dog will refuse to eat.
Fans in Hawaii have an easy time switching loyalties among mainland pro teams. And it's not really even that hard to divorce one's allegiance from the university when the chips are down. Exhibit A: the swoon in attendance for both football and men's basketball in 1998-99.
BUT these teams are not dominated by the sons and daughters of your neighbors, so it stands to reason that the identification factor can never be as strong as the one that binds John Ferguson to his native Donegal teams. Even now that he's 10 time zones away from Ireland.
Ferguson, known as a man who has served up many a pint at both O'Toole's and Murphy's, said hurling and Gaelic football are so embedded in the ancient culture of the Celts that to play is to be Irish. To be Irish is to play.
We American sports fans are a fickled lot, and that's understandable. The only time we get to cheer for teams that represent our neighborhoods is at the high school level (although private school recruiting and public school district exceptions cloud even that picture).
Millionaire American pros don't work except when they're playing, and lack of loyalty to the communities they represent has come to be expected.
Irish ballplayers are willing to work a full day at real jobs in their home towns, and then pour what they have left on to a 160- by 80-yard field at night. All for the people they represent, and all for no more than maybe gas or meal money.
What a foreign concept of sports.
Pat Bigold has covered sports for daily newspapers
in Hawaii and Massachusetts since 1978.